How do other pretenders override my Dominion?

[Nappa]

For the first time since my fist two games I lost a game because Pythium was able to extinguish my dominion everywhere.

What exactly causes this to happen? if their dominion can never get above 10 and my dominion is 10 how can they overcome my dominion?

I saw this happening about 10 turns before the game ended. I immediately charged all my armies deep into Pythium territory. He had built a temple in every single territory. I probably destroyed 20-25 temples in those 10 turns and it did not seem to help.

Also, how does blood sacrifice work? when I noticed this happening I started blood sacrifices like crazy and switched every priest to preaching and I still lost.

Bill

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Nappa:
[QB]What exactly causes this to happen? if their dominion can never get above 10 and my dominion is 10 how can they overcome my dominion?

Every time a successful temple check occurs, and the province is at maximum dominion, it is likely that the dominion will spread to a neighbouring province. If you don't have enough temples to counteract this, then you will lose dominion in your provinces.

Also, how does blood sacrifice work? when I noticed this happening I started blood sacrifices like crazy and switched every priest to preaching and I still lost.

Blood sacrifice causes a temple check for every blood slave that is sacrificed.

[LintMan]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
Every time a successful temple check occurs, and the province is at maximum dominion, it is likely that the dominion will spread to a neighbouring province. If you don't have enough temples to counteract this, then you will lose dominion in your provinces.

Does the temple check spread have a cascade effect? (ie: if the temple check succeeds, but surrounding provinces are already at max, will it try to spread to provinces further away?)

If it doesn't cascade, it's strange that his own dominion would fade so dramatically if he destroyed all/most the surrounding temples.

Does Pythium have stealth priests? Of perhaps stealthy priests from another race (Marignon?) had infiltrated?

Or maybe Pythium had that "restless followers" theme? I think that makes dominion spread to surrounding provinces independently of temple checks. (I'm curious about how that works, exactly.)

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by LintMan:
Does the temple check spread have a cascade effect? (ie: if the temple check succeeds, but surrounding provinces are already at max, will it try to spread to provinces further away?)

I'm almost certain that it does cascade, as I've had dominion drop 10 points in a particular province in a single turn.

[Yossar]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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Originally posted by LintMan:
Does the temple check spread have a cascade effect? (ie: if the temple check succeeds, but surrounding provinces are already at max, will it try to spread to provinces further away?)

I'm almost certain that it does cascade, as I've had dominion drop 10 points in a particular province in a single turn.

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It doesn't even have to be at max dominion to spread farther. At the start of the game on a large map you can easily get small amounts of dominion two or more provinces away even when the surrounding provinces aren't anywhere close to max.

[rabelais]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
I'm almost certain that it does cascade, as I've had dominion drop 10 points in a particular province in a single turn.

This sounds like a bug to me. Dominion of 10 should be relatively difficult to penetrate, and the cascading should theoretically not be perfectly efficient.

Given what we know about dominion spreading, this seems highly improbable under legitimate game mechanics. As it should be. If this is possible using the actual algorithm, that algorithm needs to be looked at very carefully to avoid abuse.

I have heard MP stories of dom going from 5 to 0 in the cap, on turn 6, with no obvious stimulus. Needless to say the person was dissapponted with their inexplicably quick exit.

Have others experienced sponteneous zeroing of dominion (a la the scale bug?) ?

Rabe the Sacerdotally Suspicious.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by rabelais:
This sounds like a bug to me. Dominion of 10 should be relatively difficult to penetrate, and the cascading should theoretically not be perfectly efficient.

It went from dominion 1 to dominion -9 in one turn in a province with a dominion 7 strength templer and 2 or 3 preaching seraphines.

If this is possible using the actual algorithm, that algorithm needs to be looked at very carefully to avoid abuse.

This was versus a huge number of Ermorian temples.

I've also seen the effect on a much larger scale when the opposing dominion was a dominion strength 10 Mictlan with many, many sacrifices going on every turn.

[PhilD]

I would also like to know how the cascading effect works.

In solo games, I typically will have temples in every single province, and, as a result, all my "internal" provinces have a +10 dominion.

When controlling most of the map, this should result in a huge amount of "dominion pressure" if the cascading effect was perfect and long-range (that is, if a temple check resulted in a 1-point dominion increase that moved around until it found some place to take effect).